President Chen Shui-bian received this afternoon the Swaziland Economy and Development Minister, Absalom M.C. Dlamini, and members of the Swaziland delegation attending the "9th Taiwan-Swaziland Economic and Technical Cooperation Conference". As the president cordially welcomes their presence, he also hopes that the results of this conference will strengthen the two countries' relations.
The president said that it has been 37 years since Taiwan and Swaziland made official their diplomatic ties in 1968. During this time, the two countries cultivated very close friendship from which they worked out many exchanges and cooperation. Since long ago, the Swaziland government and its people have given their greatest support to Taiwan when it tried to expand its international presence, including joining the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization, for which the people of Taiwan fully appreciated.
The president is thankful to His Majesty, King Mswati III, to have attended his inauguration ceremony last year on May 20. The president also asked Mr. Dlamini to convey the greetings from Taiwan to His Majesty.
The president said that under the king's leadership during the past recent years, Swaziland has stabilized its politics, social harmony, and positive results have come out of the constitutional democracy reform. It has also greatly ameliorated its people's living quality, and improved the country's infrastructure. As Swaziland has a very good environment for investment, many Taiwanese businesspeople have gone there to benefit from the agreement of double taxation avoidance in investment between these two countries as well as the African Growth and Opportunity Act that His Majesty endorses. There are for the moment 28 Taiwanese companies establishing their factories in Swaziland with a capital totalling US$70 million, creating 20,000 job opportunities, which shows that investment in Swaziland still has room to grow.
Concerning Taiwan and Swaziland's economic, trade and health cooperation, the president expects that Swaziland could provide Taiwanese businesspeople more help to set up more factories there. The Taiwanese government is also very concerned about Swaziland's anti-AIDS plan, hoping that it could work out effectively so that Taiwan could offer more substantial aid to improve the situation.